Wednesday, October 31

Gimme yer booty!


Yarrrn!


Ahoy, mateys! This be (basically) what I be wearin' about town on this fine October day.

Tuesday, October 30

All hail the Gutterball Queen!


Hope's Divas: Medic, Darrrcy, BAS, Xa. The shirts were made by the one and only Darrrcy.


Bowling was a lot of fun. I am proclaiming myself Gutterball Queen; for the first half of the first game, I had knocked down but five pins. (Even with the help of the metal rack thing you see below, which is what the three-year-old in the next lane over was using to bowl. Pitiful.) The bowl-a-thon raised over $3,000 for the Children's Miracle Network, which is excellent. Hope's Divas provided $240 of that.


Not even the rack would keep my ball out of the gutter!





Also, I'm knitting socks. See?

The instep has begun
Breeze socks!

Tuesday, October 23

Double the weddings, double your fun!


You'd look like this, too, if you went to two weddings in one day.


Actually, you probably wouldn't. We had a blast, though. Mistress Saucy Dish wore a fantastic dress of jersey material that looked totally classy; I wore the Shiniest Shirt Known to Man. But, of course, we were dull compared to the Brides du Jour. Have a look:


The first wedding couple: John and Steph.



The second wedding couple and the two happiest people I know: Liz and Dan.*


Both ceremonies were beautiful. I have to say, I loves me a good Luther wedding! (And two good Luther weddings, well!) Mistress Saucy Dish and I had a great time on our whirlwind Tour de Cities. (And of course we stopped at IKEA. Mistress Saucy Dish had never been, so it was compulsory. We had breakfast there, too. I love Swedes.)



Mistress Saucy Dish seems afraid to see me do my finger dance.


Now to pare for Whirlwind Tour Part Deux: Musca-town. I've got me a bowl-a-thon to attend, and fabulous people to see.

*Aren't they the cutest? They're going to have the smilingest, reddest-haired babies ever. Ever.

Monday, October 8

I don't like Mondays ...

One of my co-workers lost her recycling box over the weekend; it appears someone threw it out. Well, she kept complaining about it every few minutes. Just now, the comment was, "V, did you see someone steal my box? Someone ate my box!"

Ah, the hilarity.


I went to the homecoming football game Friday (in support of the marching band, not the team; as I predicted, the only thing our team won Friday night was the initial coin toss). I took the Dr. Who scarf with me, knowing it would be quite unlikely that my dad, who was photographing the game from the field, see it.

Well, it turns out I shouldn't knit garter stitch in close quarters. When I got home later (we left after the band's halftime show), my right shoulder was absolutely screaming at me. It was all still, and I couldn't raise my arm above my shoulder, which made packing for the weekend a challenge. I went for some hardcore painkillers — 500mg of naproxen — and didn't pack any knitting. (Oh, the agony!)

I think I need to find a new way to knit, and statim — picking instead of throwing may indeed be the way to go. I still had residual stiffness in my shoulder and neck yesterday, though today it seems to be doing well. But I don't think I can stand my shoulder doing that again. (And here I thought I was sleeping poorly when it's been the knitting all this time aggravating my shoulder.)

Speaking of knitting, I'm still trying to think of a way to include it in my Civil War costume. Maybe I'll work on some alpaca armwarmers or something and pretend it's part of a wooly sweater. Not many could tell the difference, I'm sure. I'll just go look up some Civil War knitting ...

Wednesday, October 3

In which there is much discussion of weekend activities

I feel like I'm going to be busy forever. This weekend (after the Homecoming game my dad has to cover for the paper) my family is travelling to Missouri to have a surprise 40th birthday party for my aunt. (Yes, Timmy, your twin.) So far we have gotten for the party candles which spell, individually, H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-P. Someone blundered in quality control on that one, but since my uncle can't spell very well, we'll just say he picked them out.

Next weekend is the Covered Bridge Festival. Mistress Saucy Dish might come down to visit. I'll be participating in a Civil War era fashion show both days. (Imagine that — me in a fashion show!) I've got a lovely tartan sort of pattern for the outfit I will wear, a six-bone hoop skirt, and a fancy velvet hat with flowers and a navy blue ribbon. I'm kind of excited.

The weekend after that, I'll be road tripping to Minnesota with Mistress Saucy Dish to a wedding. I'm pretty excited about that, too. I imagine I'll see lots of Luther folk there, as well, as they're both Luther grads (and Dorian counselors, no less). Still working on that wedding gift.

The last weekend in October I think is free, but the first in November is the fall musical, The Wizard of Oz. I don't know that I've mentioned it before, but my brother will be playing the Cowardly Lion. His girlfriend is Dorothy. What's even better than that is my parents' dog was cast as Toto. (She looks a bit like Toto, too, even though Chloe's not the same breed.) Good thing she knows Dorothy so well. I think that will make it easier. (Well, that and her favorite treat, Wavy Bacon.)

The next two weekends in November will be spent celebrating birthdays. The Cowardly Lion will be turning 17 (yipes!) on the 15th, and dear old dad will be 50 on the 19th. I don't know what kind of to-do we'll have for him. So far, I've decided that seeing Beowulf the day it comes out (the 16th) might be fun. (Also, Neil Gaiman wrote the screenplay, so I'm pretty pumped about seeing it anyway. Especially as I still haven't seen Stardust yet.)

Speaking of dear old dad, his birthday scarf is still the same length it was two days ago. I did manage to exchange my circ now, so things should be moving along quite smoothly.

Now I think I'll go do something Octobery. Either that or put the paper on the web, which is my next task for the day.

Pax!

Monday, October 1

That's a long scarf, friends.

The Dr. Who scarf is coming along nicely, I think. I've finished the first of four columns in the text-based pattern; 23 color blocks and 360 rows later, the scarf reaches from the floor to right about where my scar from gallbladder surgery is (or about 7 inches below my sternum). There's a nick on the cable of my circular needle, though, so I'm going to try to exchange it later today. It didn't bother me at first, but I think it's beginning to catch the yarn more and more.

I don't know a whole lot more than that. I'm just doing a lot of reading (Something Wicked This Way Comes, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and The Princess Bride) and a lot of watching movie commentary (POTC: Dead Man's Chest and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are the most recent). Really, everyone should watch movie commentary. It usually has excellent bits of trivia.

Now off to work, where I shall think about fun things (Haben Sie mein Dodo geshehen?) whilst performing the mundane (Bingo starts Thursday at the Community Center. A meal will be served 5:30 p.m.).